Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Time Consumption (03/21/14)

This week I did some reading in the book, Manage Your Day-To-Day:Build Your Routine Find Your Focus & Sharpen Your Creative Mind. I took what I thought was good advice and some points that I hope that I will keep in mind throughout my career.

Manage Your Day-To-Day spoke to the distractions that technology has brought into our lives. Although as a 21 year old student I do not get many emails that require an immediate reply, I can relate to the distractions and the time I waste checking my smart phone. Reading and responding to an email or texting someone back and forth is easier than sitting down to the project or the research paper ahead of me. The advice offered in the book is good advice to students as well as professionals. I particularly took away that scheduling time to do my work, (for me, scheduled time at the library) and turning off my phone during this time is the most effective way to getting work done. It is a good habit and I will continue to try to make it a permanent one.

While reading the book I recognize the dilemma technology brings to the workplace. Getting to work and being faced with 85 emails first thing in the morning, for example, sounds very daunting and distracting. For so many years now we have been hearing the expression 24/7. Fortunately it seems people are beginning to realize that 24/7 is not necessarily a good thing. As Dan Ariely writes in the chapter Understanding our Compulsions “The idea that the best way to communicate with people is 24/7 is not really an idea about maximizing potential.” (p 92) Ariely also writes that checking email first thing in the morning is a bad habit. It is a waste of a very productive and creative time of day. Reading emails and responding to emails should be scheduled into the day. If this became a habit among more professionals it would become an accepted practice and would perhaps increase productivity and creativity. Truthfully however, as much as I understand the time consumption and the distractions that responding to a large amount of emails cause, there is a part of me that hopes and looks forward to this becoming a problem of mine as well. Be Careful what you wish for. I know.

My favorite piece of advice I read this week was from Scott Belsky in the chapter “Tuning In To You.” Belsky writes that by turning off the technology and being more present in the “now” you are broadening your chances to come across unexpected opportunities. Belsky writes, “When you tune in to the moment, you begin to recognize the world around you and the true potential of your own mind.” (p111) Personally this is something that I want to work on. I plan to make being present in the world a priority, and hope for and expect some unexpected opportunities to come my way.